Telegram Channel Scraper: Extract Posts, Views, Reactions and Media from Public Telegram Channels (No Login)

Telegram Channel Scraper downloads posts from any public Telegram channel and returns clean, structured data: text, publish date, view count, reactions, photos, videos with durations, forwards, replies, links, hashtags and mentions. It can also return channel info: title, description, subscriber count and photo.

It reads Telegram's own public web preview, t.me/s/<channel>, the page anyone can open in a browser. You need no Telegram account, no phone number and no API keys, and you only pay for the posts you get.

Use it to monitor news and crypto channels, archive a channel, track how many views and reactions a channel gets, or feed posts into alerts, spreadsheets and AI pipelines.

What can this Telegram scraper do?

• 📢 Scrape any public channel. Paste usernames (durov), @names or links (https://t.me/durov, https://t.me/s/durov, or a post link like https://t.me/durov/531). Add as many channels as you like.
• 📝 Complete post data. You get plain text (line breaks and emoji kept) and, optionally, HTML. Each post also has its exact UTC date, views as a number ("1.85M" becomes 1850000), the author signature, an edited flag, forwarded-from, the post it replies to, link previews, links, hashtags, mentions and reactions with counts.
• 🖼️ Media details. Each attachment has a type (photo, video, GIF and others), photo URLs, video thumbnails and video durations in seconds. Video file URLs are included when Telegram embeds the video.
• 🗓️ Filter by date and keyword. Get only posts newer than a date (2026-10-01 or 7 days) and/or posts containing a keyword. Paging stops at the date limit, so old history isn't downloaded for nothing.
• 🔁 Incremental monitoring. Turn on Only new posts and schedule the Actor. Each run outputs, and charges for, only posts published since the previous run. A run with nothing new costs one request per channel.
• 🛡️ Polite and reliable. It makes one request per second by default and slows down on its own if Telegram rate-limits. Each channel is handled separately: a missing, private or misspelled channel produces a clear warning, and the other channels continue.
• 💸 Pay per post. There's no subscription. Channel-info items are free.

Why this scraper?

	Telegram Channel Scraper
Login, phone number, Telegram API ID	❌ Not needed
Price	$0.50 per 1,000 posts. Channel info is free
Views as numbers, reactions with counts	✅
Photos, videos (duration, thumbnail), GIFs	✅
Forwarded-from, reply-to, edited flag	✅
Links, hashtags, mentions, link previews	✅
Date filter that stops paging early	✅
Keyword filter (non-matching posts are free)	✅
Incremental "only new posts" mode	✅ Per channel, per monitor
Missing or private channel kills the run	❌ Reported with a clear reason; other channels continue
Proxy required	❌ Off by default

How to scrape a Telegram channel

1. Click Try for free or Start.
2. Add one or more channels to Channels: durov, @telegram or https://t.me/tginfo.
3. Optionally set Max posts per channel, Only posts newer than or Keywords.
4. Click Start. Download the posts as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or get them through the API.

Will a channel work? Open https://t.me/s/CHANNELNAME in a browser. If you see the channel's posts, this scraper can read them. If the browser jumps to https://t.me/CHANNELNAME instead, the channel has no public web preview, and the scraper reports it as such.

Input example

{
    "channels": ["durov", "@telegram", "https://t.me/tginfo"],
    "maxPostsPerChannel": 100,
    "onlyPostsNewerThan": "30 days",
    "keywords": [],
    "includeChannelInfo": true,
    "includeTextHtml": false,
    "onlyNewPosts": false
}

Field	Description
channels	Public channel usernames or t.me links (required). Invite links (t.me/+...), groups, users and bots are skipped with a warning.
maxPostsPerChannel	Limit per channel, newest first. 0 means no limit. Default 100.
onlyPostsNewerThan	Only posts published after this date: 2026-10-01, 2026-10-01T08:00:00Z, or relative such as 7 days, 2 weeks, 24 hours.
keywords	Only posts whose text contains any of these words or phrases (case-insensitive). Non-matching posts aren't charged.
includeChannelInfo	One extra channel-info item per channel (default true, free).
includeTextHtml	Also return the post text as HTML in textHtml (default false).
onlyNewPosts	Incremental mode: only posts published since the last run. See below.
stateKey	Name of the monitor. Separate monitors keep separate memories.
maxPagesPerChannel	Safety limit on pages per channel (20 posts each). 0 means automatic: no limit, except that a keyword filter without a date limit stops after 100 pages, about 2,000 posts.
requestDelayMs	Minimum time between requests to t.me. Default 1,000 ms.
proxyConfiguration	Off by default. Turn it on only if t.me rate-limits your runs.

Output example

Every post is one dataset item with type: "post":

{
    "type": "post",
    "channel": "telegram",
    "channelTitle": "Telegram News",
    "postId": 459,
    "url": "https://t.me/telegram/459",
    "date": "2026-08-26T19:12:24.000Z",
    "text": "Signed Gifts. You can now add your signature and a comment to gifts you buy via the gift marketplace.\n\nAugust Features\n1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • More",
    "views": 2000000,
    "author": null,
    "isEdited": false,
    "isForwarded": false,
    "forwardedFrom": null,
    "forwardedFromUrl": null,
    "replyToPostId": null,
    "media": [
        {
            "type": "video",
            "url": "https://cdn1.telesco.pe/file/6efb59a075.mp4?token=...",
            "thumbnailUrl": "https://cdn1.telesco.pe/file/jF1dZ87x...",
            "duration": 12
        }
    ],
    "linkPreview": null,
    "links": ["https://t.me/telegram/455", "https://t.me/telegram/456"],
    "hashtags": [],
    "mentions": [],
    "reactions": [],
    "scrapedAt": "2026-11-02T11:04:17.695Z"
}

With Include channel info on, each channel also gets one channel-info item:

{
    "type": "channel-info",
    "channel": "durov",
    "channelTitle": "Pavel Durov",
    "url": "https://t.me/durov",
    "description": "Founder of Telegram.",
    "subscribers": 10200000,
    "counters": { "photos": 102, "videos": 47, "links": 200 },
    "isVerified": true,
    "photoUrl": "https://cdn4.telesco.pe/file/AOgkeE7H....jpg",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-11-02T11:04:15.977Z"
}

More real items are in the Actor's sample output. Notes on the fields:

• type tells posts and channel-info items apart. Filter on it when you export.
• postId grows with every message in the channel. Some numbers are missing because of deleted posts, albums and service messages. channel + postId is a stable unique key.
• views and subscribers are numbers parsed from Telegram's rounded display ("12.3K" becomes 12300, "10.2M" becomes 10200000). They are approximate for large values.
• media[].type is photo, video, gif, round_video, voice, document, sticker, poll, location, or other for anything not recognised. A video that Telegram doesn't embed ("Media is too big") has url: null, notEmbedded: true and still a thumbnail and duration.
• reactions[] has type (emoji, custom_emoji or paid for Telegram Stars), emoji, customEmojiId and count. Custom emoji have no standard character, so only the ID is given.
• forwardedFrom is null when Telegram hides the original sender's name. isForwarded is still true.
• Media URLs point to Telegram's CDN (telesco.pe). Video URLs carry an access token, so download files you need soon after the run.

A RUN_SUMMARY record in the run's key-value store lists, for every channel: status, posts output, posts scanned, pages fetched, filtered posts, why it stopped, and errors.

How much does it cost to scrape Telegram channels?

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing. You pay $0.50 per 1,000 posts ($0.0005 per post) for posts that appear in your dataset. These cost nothing:

• channel-info items
• posts removed by your keyword or date filters
• already-seen posts in incremental mode
• missing or private channels

Posts	Price
100	$0.05
1,000	$0.50
10,000	$5.00

Your Apify plan's free monthly credit applies. To cap spending, set Maximum cost per run in the run options. The scraper stops cleanly when the budget is reached and says so in the status message.

Scheduling and incremental monitoring of new posts

Use this to get alerts for new posts in specific channels, or to keep an archive in sync:

1. Turn on Only new posts and give the monitor a name in Monitor name (e.g. crypto-news).
2. Save the configuration as a Task and add a Schedule (e.g. every hour).
3. The first run outputs posts as usual (respecting your limits) and remembers the newest post of each channel.
4. Every later run asks Telegram only for posts after that one, so it outputs only what is new. New posts arrive oldest first.

If more new posts arrived than Max posts per channel (or your budget) allows, the run outputs the oldest ones and remembers where it stopped, and the rest arrive in the next run. Nothing is skipped and nothing is charged twice.

The memory is kept per channel in a named key-value store (telegram-channel-scraper-state by default), under the monitor name you choose. Different monitor names are fully independent. Don't run two runs with the same monitor name at the same time.

Integrations and API

• API. Start runs and fetch results with the Apify API, or the JavaScript and Python clients:

  curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/rjmacarthy~telegram-channel-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d '{"channels":["durov","telegram"],"maxPostsPerChannel":20}'
  

• Webhooks. Get notified (or trigger your pipeline) when a run finishes.

• Zapier, Make, n8n. Send new posts to Google Sheets, Airtable, Slack, Discord, email or your CRM with no code.

• Google Sheets, Slack, Airbyte, Keboola and more through Apify integrations.

• AI agents. Use the Actor as a tool through the Apify MCP server.

FAQ

Do I need a Telegram account, phone number or API ID? No. The scraper reads the public web preview at t.me/s/<channel>, the same page anyone can open in a browser without logging in.

Which channels can I scrape? Public channels that have a username and a web preview. Private channels, invite-only channels, groups, users and bots aren't supported. A few public channels have the web preview turned off; the run reports them as "no public preview".

What happens with a channel that doesn't exist or is private? It's reported with a clear reason, such as "No public Telegram channel with this username exists" or "This username belongs to a bot, not a channel", and the other channels continue. You're not charged for it.

How fast is it? Each page holds up to 20 posts, and the scraper fetches one page per second by default. In testing, 30 posts from each of 3 channels (90 posts plus channel info) took 6 requests; the whole run, including two usernames that turned out not to be channels, took 9 seconds. Expect about 1,000 posts per minute, a bit less for channels that post many albums (40 posts from a busy news channel took 3 pages).

Can I get the whole history of a channel? Yes. Set Max posts per channel to 0 and leave the date empty. Large channels have hundreds of thousands of posts, so consider a date limit.

Does it return comments? No. Comments live in a separate discussion group, which the web preview doesn't show.

Why is text empty for some posts? Some posts are only a photo, video or sticker without a caption. The attachment is still in media.

Is scraping Telegram channels legal? The scraper only collects posts that channel owners publish openly on the web. It doesn't collect member lists, phone numbers or private messages. Always check that your use complies with the applicable terms and laws, especially for personal data in post text.

Limits

• Public channel posts and channel metadata only. No member lists, user lookups, private groups or comments.
• Views, reactions and subscriber counts are rounded by Telegram ("12.3K").
• Rare post types (polls, documents, voice messages, stickers, locations) are parsed from the web preview on a best-effort basis. Anything unrecognised is reported as { "type": "other" } instead of failing the run.
• The keyword filter matches the post text only (not link previews or file names).
• The reason given for a channel without a preview (not found, bot, group, user, preview disabled) is a best-effort reading of Telegram's profile page.
• Incremental state lives in a named key-value store in your account, created by the Actor. Deleting that store resets the monitor.

Ready-to-run examples

• Monitor crypto news Telegram channels
• Track keywords in Bloomberg and NYT Telegram channels

More scrapers by the same developer

• Substack Scraper
• ATS Jobs Scraper: Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby & Workday
• Workday Jobs Scraper
• Google Ads Transparency Scraper
• Dice Jobs Scraper
• SEEK Jobs Scraper

Browse all my Actors on my Apify Store profile.

Support

Found a channel that doesn't work, or need an extra field? Open an issue on the Issues tab with the channel name. Fixes are usually quick.